Once upon a time, when I was a wee little cowpoke, I lived in a gigantic new South city that was flush with oil money and big ten gallon hats. The boots were new, the hair was sprayed, the Cadillacs big, and the Dooney and Burke purses carried by the social girls at my fancy prep school were cavernous. At least until a certain Tuesday in 1987, when a whole lot of things changed in my gigantic new South city. But not that many - cotillion went on as planned. The debs bowed low and touched their noses to the floor. And the prom was held at a ranch. A *private* ranch.
On more than one occasion over the course of this particular childhood I was questioned closely about the similarity between life in my gigantic new South city and the life portrayed on a certain evening television soap opera named after another, differently named gigantic new South city flush with oil money. By which I mean, of course, "Dallas."
Television is fantasy. Complaining that it doesn't look anything like real life is batting down a straw man of the most flimsy order. Real life is tedious, fraught with pressures and worry, bad clothes, bills, and leg stubble. Television provides an escape. If Mr. Acitelli finds this arrangement untenable, I propose that he address his complaints to the tedium of everyday life, and not the escapist drivel with which we all medicate ourselves.